Opinion: Obama Makes The Case: One-Term Limit Needed For President

President Barack Obama epitomizes the need for a one-term limit for presidents of the United States. However, the term needs to be six years instead of four years. While there are several reasons for the need for a president not having the ability to run for election again, the primary reason has been made obvious by President Obama. The reason, of course, is the time spent on the campaign trail compared to the time spent doing the job that he was elected to do.

More than any president in recent history, President Barack Obama has spent the majority of his four years in office making overtures to his second term. He has been campaigning – for his first term and then his desired second term – since he hit the national scene in 2007 as a presidential candidate. We have never known Obama to not be campaigning. With a one-term limit, this would be erased from the political landscape which has plagued American politics much too long.

The truth is that the president spends more time pleading for votes and preparing for debates these days than he does running the country. Take a look at the country. America needs a full-time leader – not a part-time leader who is constantly fighting to keep his job.

The idea behind the one term being six years isn’t simply a number pulled out of thin air either. First and foremost, presidents – including Obama – who want a second term always claim that they didn’t have enough time to complete the job. They claim that they need more time to do what they had promised to do four years ago. Let’s give them more time, built into the one term. If they can’t get their “four year” plan done in “six years”, Americans are to blame because we obviously picked the wrong person to be president.

Having a six-year, one term presidency would keep the president on the job while two other candidates fight it out instead of one challenger and the current president. Also, by having the term being six years, the presidential election will fit right into the current election cycle of every two years – when mid-term elections are taken into account as well.

Of course, the president would be expected to use some of his time campaigning for the candidate of his political party. We could easily have congress outlaw the president from campaigning for anyone. Besides getting the president off the hook for having to campaign for his successor, it will hopefully keep him actively doing his job.

About Scott Paulson

Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.